I'm in Iowa (hi, neighbor!), and I have a VERY simple pond: 350 gallon
stock tank above ground, then landscaped around it to take away some of the
industrial look. I populate it with 6 goldfish (no Koi) a native carp that
appeared this spring -- who knows?. It's fairly heavily planted with native
waterlillies, under-water plants, and cat-tails, water fern, snakegrass, and
arrow-head (all native except the water fern). The cat-tails, water fern,
snakegrass, and arrow-head are all in pots about 1/2 submerged and all do
well. Its mostly shaded, which keeps down the algea. About November, all
the pots go the bottom of the pond and stay there until thaw. I run a pump
even in the winter which airates and keeps some of the surface clear, even
at 20 degrees (F) below zero. ((Because its the only open water around, I
also get deer, racoons, squirrels, cats, dogs, birds, and probably others in
far greater abundance than in the summer.

As for the fish, I only feed them the amountof floating (so I can keep
track) food they can consume in ten mi nutes, twice a day. As the water
gets colder, they eat less, resulting in less food offered. When it
freezes, I've tried putting a few pellets in the clear spot, but no takers.
There's plenty of natural food with the pots immersed and the under-water
plants. In the Spring, they've always grown over the winter. No problem.

I've had pre-formed ponds, lined ponds, sun lit ponds, and shaded ponds in
about 15 years of trying. I've done hi-tech and no-tech, but this is the
best and easiest pond yet. And it has the healthiest and showiest fish!

Good luck!

Walt


"emceemc" wrote in message
...
I have a small pond with currently 5 medium goldfish in Chicago.

Summer temperatures have just fallen off into the 50s-70s range. I
usually continue to feed until about mid-November. What is the best
way to feed in the 8-10 weeks between now and then?

I could feed them the same as always, begin to wind them down with
progressively smaller feedings, or feed them more to fatten them up
for the long fast until April.

What's the best way, or doesn't it matter?